Burlesques Part 51

"And my carriage," "And mine," "And mine!" shouted twenty more voices.

And down they all trooped to the hall: Lady Blanche Bluenose and Lady Max among the very first; leaving only the Field-Marshal and one or two men, who roared with laughter ready to split.

"Oh, Sam," said my wife, sobbing, "why would you take me back to them?

they had sent me away before! I only asked the d.u.c.h.ess whether she didn't like rum-shrub better than all your Maxarinos and Curasosos: and--would you believe it?--all the company burst out laughing; and the d.u.c.h.ess told me just to keep off, and not to speak till I was spoken to.

Imperence! I'd like to tear her eyes out."

And so I do believe my dearest Jemmy would!

A DAY WITH THE SURREY HOUNDS.

Our ball had failed so completely that Jemmy, who was bent still upon fas.h.i.+on, caught eagerly at Tagrag's suggestion, and went down to Tuggeridgeville. If we had a difficulty to find friends in town, here there was none: for the whole county came about us, ate our dinners and suppers, danced at our b.a.l.l.s--ay, and spoke to us too. We were great people in fact: I a regular country gentleman; and as such, Jemmy insisted that I should be a sportsman, and join the county hunt. "But,"

says I, "my love, I can't ride." "Pooh! Mr. C." said she, "you're always making difficulties: you thought you couldn't dance a quadrille; you thought you couldn't dine at seven o'clock; you thought you couldn't lie in bed after six; and haven't you done every one of these things? You must and you shall ride!" And when my Jemmy said "must and shall," I knew very well there was nothing for it: so I sent down fifty guineas to the hunt, and, out of compliment to me, the very next week, I received notice that the meet of the hounds would take place at Squashtail Common, just outside my lodge-gates.

I didn't know what a meet was; and me and Mrs. C. agreed that it was most probable the dogs were to be fed there. However, Tagrag explained this matter to us, and very kindly promised to sell me a horse, a delightful animal of his own; which, being desperately pressed for money, he would let me have for a hundred guineas, he himself having given a hundred and fifty for it.

Well, the Thursday came: the hounds met on Squashtail Common; Mrs. C.

turned out in her barouche to see us throw off; and, being helped up on my chestnut horse, Trumpeter, by Tagrag and my head groom, I came presently round to join them.

Tag mounted his own horse; and, as we walked down the avenue, "I thought," he said, "you told me you knew how to ride; and that you had ridden once fifty miles on a stretch!"

"And so I did," says I, "to Cambridge, and on the box too."

"ON THE BOX!" says he; "but did you ever mount a horse before?"

"Never," says I, "but I find it mighty easy."

"Well," says he, "you're mighty bold for a barber; and I like you, c.o.xe, for your spirit." And so we came out of the gate.

As for describing the hunt, I own, fairly, I can't. I've been at a hunt, but what a hunt is--why the horses WILL go among the dogs and ride them down--why the men cry out "yooooic"--why the dogs go snuffing about in threes and fours, and the huntsman says, "Good Towler--good Betsy," and we all of us after him say, "Good Towler--good Betsy" in course: then, after hearing a yelp here and a howl there, tow, row, yow, yow, yow!

burst out, all of a sudden, from three or four of them, and the chap in a velvet cap screeches out (with a number of oaths I shan't repeat here), "Hark, to Ringwood!" and then, "There he goes!" says some one; and all of a sudden, helter skelter, skurry hurry, slap bang, whooping, screeching and hurraing, blue-coats and red-coats, bays and grays, horses, dogs, donkeys, butchers, baro-knights, dustmen, and blackguard boys, go tearing all together over the common after two or three of the pack that yowl loudest. Why all this is, I can't say; but it all took place the second Thursday of last March, in my presence.

Up to this, I'd kept my seat as well as the best, for we'd only been trotting gently about the field until the dogs found; and I managed to stick on very well; but directly the tow-rowing began, off went Trumpeter like a thunderbolt, and I found myself playing among the dogs like the donkey among the chickens. "Back, Mr. c.o.xe," holloas the huntsman; and so I pulled very hard, and cried out, "Wo!" but he wouldn't; and on I went galloping for the dear life. How I kept on is a wonder; but I squeezed my knees in very tight, and shoved my feet very hard into the stirrups, and kept stiff hold of the scruff of Trumpeter's neck, and looked betwixt his ears as well as ever I could, and trusted to luck: for I was in a mortal fright, sure enough, as many a better man would be in such a case, let alone a poor hairdresser.

As for the hounds, after my first riding in among them, I tell you honestly, I never saw so much as the tip of one of their tails; nothing in this world did I see except Trumpeter's dun-colored mane, and that I gripped firm: riding, by the blessing of luck, safe through the walking, the trotting, the galloping, and never so much as getting a tumble.

There was a chap at Croydon very well known as the "Spicy Dustman," who, when he could get no horse to ride to the hounds, turned regularly out on his donkey; and on this occasion made one of us. He generally managed to keep up with the dogs by trotting quietly through the cross-roads, and knowing the country well. Well, having a good guess where the hounds would find, and the line that sly Reynolds (as they call the fox) would take, the Spicy Dustman turned his animal down the lane from Squashtail to Cuts.h.i.+ns Common; across which, sure enough, came the whole hunt.

There's a small hedge and a remarkably fine ditch here: some of the leading chaps took both, in gallant style; others went round by a gate, and so would I, only I couldn't; for Trumpeter would have the hedge, and be hanged to him, and went right for it.

Hoop! if ever you DID try a leap! Out go your legs, out fling your arms, off goes your hat; and the next thing you feel--that is, I did--is a most tremendous thwack across the chest, and my feet jerked out of the stirrups: me left in the branches of a tree; Trumpeter gone clean from under me, and walloping and floundering in the ditch underneath. One of the stirrup-leathers had caught in a stake, and the horse couldn't get away: and neither of us, I thought, ever WOULD have got away: but all of a sudden, who should come up the lane but the Spicy Dustman!

"Holloa!" says I, "you gent, just let us down from this here tree!"

"Lor'!" says he, "I'm blest if I didn't take you for a robin."

"Let's down," says I; but he was all the time employed in disengaging Trumpeter, whom he got out of the ditch, trembling and as quiet as possible. "Let's down," says I. "Presently," says he; and taking off his coat, he begins whistling and swis.h.i.+ng down Trumpeter's sides and saddle; and when he had finished, what do you think the rascal did?--he just quietly mounted on Trumpeter's back, and shouts out, "Git down yourself, old Bearsgrease; you've only to drop! I'LL give your 'oss a hairing arter them 'ounds; and you--vy, you may ride back my pony to Tuggeridgeweal!" And with this, I'm blest if he didn't ride away, leaving me holding, as for the dear life, and expecting every minute the branch would break.

It DID break too, and down I came into the slush; and when I got out of it, I can tell you I didn't look much like the Venuses or the Apollor Belvidearis what I used to dress and t.i.tivate up for my shop window when I was in the hairdressing line, or smell quite so elegant as our rose-oil. Faugh! what a figure I was!

I had nothing for it but to mount the dustman's donkey (which was very quietly cropping gra.s.s in the hedge), and to make my way home; and after a weary, weary journey, I arrived at my own gate.

A whole party was a.s.sembled there. Tagrag, who had come back; their Excellencies Mace and Punter, who were on a visit; and a number of horses walking up and down before the whole of the gentlemen of the hunt, who had come in after losing their fox! "Here's Squire c.o.xe!"

shouted the grooms. Out rushed the servants, out poured the gents of the hunt, and on trotted poor me, digging into the donkey, and everybody dying with laughter at me.

Just as I got up to the door, a horse came galloping up, and pa.s.sed me; a man jumped down, and taking off a fantail hat, came up, very gravely, to help me down.

"Squire," says he, "how came you by that there hanimal? Jist git down, will you, and give it to its howner?"

"Rascal!" says I, "didn't you ride off on my horse?"

"Was there ever sich ingrat.i.tude?" says the Spicy. "I found this year 'oss in a pond, I saves him from drowning, I brings him back to his master, and he calls me a rascal!"

The grooms, the gents, the ladies in the balcony, my own servants, all set up a roar at this; and so would I, only I was so deucedly ashamed, as not to be able to laugh just then.

And so my first day's hunting ended. Tagrag and the rest declared I showed great pluck, and wanted me to try again; but "No," says I, "I HAVE been."

THE FINIs.h.i.+NG TOUCH.

I was always fond of billiards: and, in former days, at Grogram's in Greek Street, where a few jolly lads of my acquaintance used to meet twice a week for a game, and a snug pipe and beer, I was generally voted the first man of the club; and could take five from John the marker himself. I had a genius, in fact, for the game; and now that I was placed in that station of life where I could cultivate my talents, I gave them full play, and improved amazingly. I do say that I think myself as good a hand as any chap in England.

The Count and his Excellency Baron von Punter were, I can tell you, astonished by the smartness of my play: the first two or three rubbers Punter beat me, but when I came to know his game, I used to knock him all to sticks; or, at least, win six games to his four: and such was the betting upon me; his Excellency losing large sums to the Count, who knew what play was, and used to back me. I did not play except for s.h.i.+llings, so my skill was of no great service to me.

One day I entered the billiard-room where these three gentlemen were high in words. "The thing shall not be done," I heard Captain Tagrag say: "I won't stand it."

"Vat, begause you would have de bird all to yourzelf, hey?" said the Baron.

"You sall not have a single fezare of him, begar," said the Count: "ve vill blow you, M. de Taguerague; parole d'honneur, ve vill."

"What's all this, gents," says I, stepping in, "about birds and feathers?"

"Oh," says Tagrag, "we were talking about--about--pigeon-shooting; the Count here says he will blow a bird all to pieces at twenty yards, and I said I wouldn't stand it, because it was regular murder."

"Oh, yase, it was bidgeon-shooting," cries the Baron: "and I know no better sbort. Have you been bidgeon-shooting, my dear Squire? De fon is gabidal."

"No doubt," says I, "for the shooters, but mighty bad sport for the PIGEON." And this joke set them all a-laughing ready to die. I didn't know then what a good joke it WAS, neither; but I gave Master Baron, that day, a precious good beating, and walked off with no less than fifteen s.h.i.+llings of his money.

As a sporting man, and a man of fas.h.i.+on, I need not say that I took in the Flare-up regularly; ay, and wrote one or two trifles in that celebrated publication (one of my papers, which Tagrag subscribed for me, Philo-pest.i.tiaeamicus, on the proper sauce for teal and widgeon--and the other, signed Scru-tatos, on the best means of cultivating the kidney species of that vegetable--made no small noise at the time, and got me in the paper a compliment from the editor). I was a constant reader of the Notices to Correspondents, and, my early education having been rayther neglected (for I was taken from my studies and set, as is the custom in our trade, to practise on a sheep's head at the tender age of nine years, before I was allowed to venture on the humane countenance,)--I say, being thus curtailed and cut off in my cla.s.sical learning, I must confess I managed to pick up a pretty smattering of genteel information from that treasury of all sorts of knowledge; at least sufficient to make me a match in learning for all the n.o.blemen and gentlemen who came to our house. Well, on looking over the Flare-up notices to correspondents, I read, one day last April, among the notices, as follows:--

"'Automodon.' We do not know the precise age of Mr. Baker of Covent Garden Theatre; nor are we aware if that celebrated son of Thespis is a married man.

"'Ducks and Green-peas' is informed, that when A plays his rook to B's second Knight's square, and B, moving two squares with his Queen's p.a.w.n, gives check to his adversary's Queen, there is no reason why B's Queen should not take A's p.a.w.n, if B be so inclined.

"'F. L. S.' We have repeatedly answered the question about Madame Vestris: her maiden name was Bartolozzi, and she married the son of Charles Mathews, the celebrated comedian.

"'Fair Play.' The best amateur billiard and ecarte player in England, is c.o.xe Tuggeridge c.o.xe, Esq., of Portland Place, and Tuggeridgeville: Jonathan, who knows his play, can only give him two in a game of a hundred; and, at the cards, NO man is his superior. Verb.u.m sap.